The neon bike outside of the OCAD U Student Gallery was conceived as a simple art project that we hoped would beautify and energize the grim strip of Dundas Street West where we work. The bike’s bold, graphic and current aesthetic was an instant hit with passersby. When we were ticketed by the City, support for the bike poured in from locals and from people in far flung locations including Brazil and Australia. The controversy forced the municipal government to recoil and prompted City Councillor, Gary Crawford, to invite us to realize a large scale project using bikes from the City garbage dump. And so began the good bike project, a public art initiative that saved over seventy rusted bikes from the trash heap and added colour to our cityscape for one summer. Each bike marked a site that promoted the spirit of regeneration and community that inspired our act of beautification in the first place.

For more on the roller-coaster that was the good bike project——- click here for the project blog! Click here for our project video! And click here for our here for our project essay!